Learn about a 5-step process for finding work-life balance; deep sea photosynthesis; and the Antikythera mechanism.
Learn about a 5-step process for finding work-life balance; photosynthetic bacteria that have never seen the sun; and why researchers build a digital model of the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism: the first known analog computer.
A 5-step process for hitting the moving target of work-life balance by Kelsey Donk
There are photosynthetic bacteria that have never seen the sun by Cameron Duke
Researchers just built the most accurate and complete model of the first known analog computer by Cameron Duke
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/5-steps-to-hitting-work-life-balance
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about a 5-step process for finding work-life balance; photosynthetic bacteria that have never seen the sun; and why researchers build a digital model of the first known analog computer.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Work-life balance can sometimes feel a little mythical, like the Loch Ness monster. Some people say they’ve seen it, while others aren’t sure it’s even real. Luckily, a recent study is making it a little less make-believe.
Researchers from the UK and France took a look at work-life balance and found that it’s not something you achieve at all! Instead, it might be something you maintain, in a cycle that repeats itself throughout your career. The good news is that these researchers also identified five steps to maintain work-life balance in your own career.
For the study, researchers interviewed about 80 office workers. The people were all between the ages of 30 and 50, they worked in middle or senior management, and they all had at least one child. But there was a key difference. About half of the women and a third of the men said they resisted working long hours at the office. The rest did work long hours. They thought that was what it meant to be a professional.
The researchers took a closer look at the people who resisted working long hours and found that they employed pretty similar strategies. They might not always have what they’d call a perfect “work-life” balance, but they were always prioritizing what felt most important to them. The researchers were able to sort out five steps that these people take in their work. These are steps you can take, too.
And once you’ve done that, remember that achieving work-life balance isn’t a one-time fix. At some point, your priorities might change and you’ll need to reevaluate. It’s a cycle that you’ll likely go through over the whole course of your professional and personal life. Take stock of your priorities, and do what you can to give them equal attention.
Photosynthesis requires light. I mean, plants use light to create energy — that’s the basic definition of photosynthesis. But a team of microbiologists once found photosynthesis happening in the last place anyone would ever think to look: the ocean floor. How could photosynthesis ever work so far below the reach of sunlight? The answer: it uses a different kind of light.
Sixteen years ago, a team of researchers discovered some bacteria living 2.4 kilometers (or about a mile and a half) below the surface of the ocean. The bacteria were found near a hydrothermal vent that was spewing hot, sulfuric compounds into the water. Life is surprisingly common near vents like these, so that wasn’t weird by itself. The weird part was that some of these bacteria rely on photosynthesis to survive.
Here’s how weird that is: Sunlight typically reaches only about 100 meters down, meaning that there is more than a mile of darkness above these bacteria. And yet, photosynthesis is still happening.
How? By using light from an alternate source. Magma in the vent glows with visible light, but also with infrared light, as heat. In fact, most of the geothermal light produced by these vents is in the form of heat, and that leaves only a small amount of visible light that these bacteria can use for photosynthesis.
The form of photosynthesis going on is quite a bit different than the photosynthesis the ficus in the corner of your room is doing. That plant is using light to harvest energy from CO2. The seafloor bacteria are using the dim light from the vent to break apart the sulfuric compounds that are being spewed from the vent itself.
So how do these bacteria survive on so little light? It’s thanks to elongated, light-catching structures that resemble antennae. These things help them scoop up every last ounce of the dim light they need.
Whenever we find life persisting in unusual, even alien places, it’s in forms that we don’t see anywhere else. As we search for the possibility of life on other planets, looking at the most unlikely and reclusive life forms on Earth can give us an idea of what to look out for.
For example, Jupiter's moon Europa is too far away from the sun to enable ordinary photosynthesis. But scientists believe that there might be active thermal vents underneath its oceans. So who knows?
In the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcom, "Life finds a way." Even in the most unlikely places.
Imagine the original analog computer. Are you picturing a room-sized punch-card machine with the power of a calculator? Try thousands of years older, back to the ancient Greeks. That’s right. The ancient Greeks had the earliest analog computer known to man. It was called the Antikythera mechanism [ANN-tuh-kuh-THEE-ruh]. And new research is uncovering more of its mysteries.
Our knowledge of this device dates back to 1900 — C.E. That’s when a Greek diver was exploring a shipwreck off the coast of the island of Antikythera and made a fascinating discovery. It was an ancient Roman ship that was full of artifacts from 65 BCE. A year after that discovery, an archaeologist realized that some fragments that seemed to be rock had gears embedded within them. It wasn’t rock — it was corroded bronze. After careful inspection, experts found 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, things that looked like clock hands, and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.
Over time, archaeologists have uncovered many of the Antikythera mechanism’s secrets. This collection of gears encased within a box had the capability of predicting the positions of the sun, moon, and all of the planets the Greeks knew about — each with an impressive degree of accuracy. The device can even account for the slight changes in the moon’s velocity as it orbits the Earth.
Recently, a team of researchers at University College London have constructed the most accurate model of the Antikythera mechanism to date. They scanned the mechanism’s components using x-ray tomography and were able to reconstruct the missing pieces of the mechanism to produce a working digital model. They combined that model with what they knew of ancient Greek astronomy to figure out how these ancient astronomers made such accurate measurements.
A hand-crank powered device that mechanically computes the positions of celestial bodies might not be impressive by today’s standards. But let’s think about how old this thing is for a minute. It uses gears, but predates clockwork technology by well more than a millennium.
The suggestion here is that scientific knowledge at the time of the Greeks might have been more advanced than we are aware of and simply lost to time. Some researchers think that the reason for this might have to do with the value of bronze at the time, which was often melted down and recycled. If that ship hadn’t sunk thousands of years ago, the Antikythera mechanism may have been lost to time. I guess that in a way, that makes the ship a sunk cost.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk and Cameron Duke, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Stick to your schedule this week by joining us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!